Black Gate – Page 672 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

February Issue of Swords and Sorcery Magazine Now Available

Thursday, March 17, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Issue 49 of Curtis Ellett’s Swords and Sorcery Magazine, cover-dated February 2016, is now available.

In his February Short Story Roundup, Black Gate‘s roving reporter Fletcher Vredenburgh had this to say about the latest issue:

Issue 49 kicks off the mag’s fifth year. Congratulations are definitely due Mr. Ellett for holding the genre’s banner high…

The magazine’s second story, Lynn Rushlau’s “The Garden of Dreamers” is much better at achieving its author’s goal, which apparently was to creep the everloving snot out of me.

A group of guardsman and their commander have been sent to the Garden of Dreamers on a mission. They must overcome the Garden’s servitors, and their fears, to capture their quarry. It’s very short with little plot, but it creates an intense atmosphere of unpleasant closeness I found perfectly unnerving.

Each issue of Swords and Sorcery Magazine contains two short stories, and is available free online. Here’s the issue summary.

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Dungeons, Dragons, and Vampires: Curse of Strahd

Thursday, March 17, 2016 Andrew Zimmerman Jones Comments 3 comments

Cover of the Curse of Strahd adventure supplement. (Source: Wizards of the Coast) — (Source: Wizards of the Coast)

The newest Dungeons & Dragons adventure supplement, Curse of Strahd, hits the stands at gaming stores around the world and brings the classic Ravenloft gothic horror setting alive for the 5th edition.

The game is built around the classic 1983 Module 16: Ravenloft adventure, written by Tracy and Laura Hickman. Ravenloft centered on the land of Barovia, one of the Domains of Dread that has been pulled from its home world and now exists in a cross-dimensional form within the Shadowfell region of the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse. One key aspect of this is that any world, any setting, can have contact with Barovia, as the barrier between the “normal” world and this dark gothic realm become weak. Adventurers become lost in a bizarre mist and find themselves in Barovia, the village that is home to Castle Ravenloft and the realm’s mysterious ruler, Count Strahd von Zarovich. This makes Curse of Strahd a potential resource for any campaign.

Curse of Strahd is really a mix of setting manual and adventure module in one, with a storyline that is extremely open-ended, with endings that (assuming the players survive) allow for continued adventures centered around the consequences of the players’ actions in Castle Ravenloft.

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Win One of Tor.com‘s March Releases!

Thursday, March 17, 2016 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

I love novellas. Tor.com loves novellas. We have so much in common, I sometimes wish we could run off together. (Of course, you know how these internet infatuations end up. I’m emotionally needy, and Tor.com is such a workaholic… it would all end in tears. But you know it’d be beautiful while it lasted.)

Our love may be doomed, but there’s no reason someone shouldn’t end up happy. And I think it should be you. To help make that happen, Black Gate and Tor.com have teamed up to give away copies of all three of their March releases:

The Devil You Know, K. J. Parker (126 pages, $10.99, March 1) — cover by Jon Foster (reveal, excerpt)
Forest of Memory, Mary Robinette Kowal (88 pages, $9.99, March 8) — cover by Victo Ngai (reveal, excerpt)
Pieces of Hate, Tim Lebbon (148 pages, $12.99, March 15) — cover by Gene Mollica (reveal, excerpt)

How do you make one of them yours? Nothing could be simpler! Just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with the subject “Tor.com contest,” and a one-sentence review of your all-time favorite novella.

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The Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia

Wednesday, March 16, 2016 Sean McLachlan Comments 3 comments

The Church of St. George, cut into the bedrock at Lalibela

Last week I discussed the unique blend of Baroque and Abyssinian styles that created the Castles of Gondar, Ethiopia. I’ve also written on the splendid ancient civilization of Axum in the same country. But Ethiopia has a lot more to offer than that. The most famous historic sites, and certainly the most impressive, are the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela.

In the late 12th century, much of what is now northern and central Ethiopia was under the rule of the Zagwe dynasty. Ethiopia had been Christian since 330 AD and had developed its own liturgy, practices, and traditions. Like with all other Christian lands, many Ethiopians dreamed of going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. For some time this was possible, although it involved a long trek overland to catch a boat on the Red Sea, then another trek across the desert to get to the holy cities. But as the Crusades turned the Holy Land into a battleground, it turned a difficult journey into an impossible one. The rulers of the Zagwe dynasty came up with a unique solution.

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Future Treasures: The Blood Red City by Justin Richards

Wednesday, March 16, 2016 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Justin Richards is a jack-of-all-trades. He’s written numerous books — including The Chaos Code, The Parliament of Blood, and the Time Runners series — as well as audio plays and a stage play. He’s also an editor for a media journal, with several anthologies to his credit. He’s the Creative Director for the BBC’s Doctor Who books, and has authored several himself (including Time Lord Fairytales, The Shakespeare Notebooks, and The Only Good Dalek).

None of that prepared me for his 2015 novel The Suicide Exhibition, which featured an insidious Nazis plot to use alien Vril technology to win the war, and the small band of British wartime intelligence agents who undertake a desperate mission to stop Heinrich Himmler from excavating ancient burial grounds and finding these extraterrestrial Übermenschen. Michael Moorcock said “Richards brings all his skills as a leading Doctor Who writer to this tale of wartime intelligence at odds with some of H.P. Lovecraft’s worst nightmares,” and Kirkus Reviews said “Richards’ true talent lies in crafting campy but believable dialogue which imbues the novel with a real sense of character… Part Indiana Jones, part X-Files, part Catch-22, it’s good campy fun.”

The Blood Red City, the second volume in The Never War, arrives in hardcover from Thomas Dunne before the end of the month. As the alien Vril awaken, Colonel Brinkman and his team at Station Z stuggle to solve an ancient mystery… while preparing for an imminent alien attack.

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The Problem With Marion Zimmer Bradley: Rich Horton on Falcons of Narabedla/The Dark Intruder

Wednesday, March 16, 2016 John ONeill Comments 14 comments

In a recent review at his blog Strange at Ecbatan, Rich Horton tackles the thorny subject of Marion Zimmer Bradley, one of the top-selling fantasy writers of the 20th Century (The Mists of Avalon, Darkover) head on.

In 1964… Marion married Walter Breen, a fellow SF fan and a noted numismatist, within a month. Breen was already well known as an advocate of pederasty, and MZB certainly knew of his proclivities, and indeed Breen had been banned from at least one SF convention in that time period. Breen had been convicted of pederasty-related crimes as early as 1954, and continued to have trouble with the law, finally going to jail after another conviction in 1990. MZB managed to dodge serious consequences of her husband’s activities throughout her life, and she died in 1999. In 2014 her daughter, by Breen, Moira Greyland, accused her of sexual abuse, and in retrospect it seems to me that it should have been clear all along that Bradley was at least negligently complicit in her husband’s crimes, certainly aware of them, and now it appears more likely than not that she was a participant herself. (Though I suppose I must add that damning and convincing as the accusations seem, Bradley never did have a chance to defend herself against those that came after her death, though some of her own testimony given during Breen’s legal troubles is chilling enough.) This has understandably had a devastating effect on her reputation — and she was not really a good enough writer to make it likely that her work will long survive the posthumous stain. Jim Hines briefly discusses this, with links to more direct information, in a good blog post here.

With that preamble, he has another look at Bradley’s 1964 Ace Double, the novel Falcons of Narabedla paired with the collection The Dark Intruder.

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Barnes & Noble’s Fantasy Picks for March

Wednesday, March 16, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Barnes & Noble announced their Bookseller’s Picks for March earlier this month, including their top SF and Fantasy releases. It’s an impressive list — including BG author Myke Cole’s upcoming novel Javelin Rain.

While this is technically the fifth book in Cole’s Shadow Ops series, it’s really a sequel to the prequel novel Gemini Cell. Set in a future in which magic’s reappearance in the world is just beginning to erode the old order, Jim Schweitzer is a U.S. Navy SEAL serving with the Gemini Cell — until he’s killed in action. And then brought back from the dead via occult means. His escape is coded “javelin rain,” indicating the worst possible security threat — one that must be stopped as quickly as possible, by any means necessary. As Schweitzer discovers his resurrection has made him immortal, his family certainly isn’t, and he has to use all of his skills — old and new — to protect all that is important to him. Combining military heroics, espionage intrigue, and magic-infused action, Cole adds new layers to one of the most unique SF/F universes on shelves today.

We covered B&N’s picks for the Best SF and Fantasy of 2015 here.

Javelin Rain, by Myke Cole, will be published by Ace Books on March 29. It’s priced at $7.99 in paperback and digital formats. Myke’s last posts for Black Gate were Drizzt Do’Urden Simply Won’t Stop Adventuring: Learning to Love Serial Fantasy and Selling Shadow Ops. Our roving reporter Patty Templeton interviewed him here.

Old Dark House Double Feature II: Secret of the Chateau (1934) and The Headless Ghost (1959)

Wednesday, March 16, 2016 William I. Lengeman III Comments 0 Comment

Secret of the Chateau
Universal Studios, 1934
Directed by Richard Thorpe

Books — as in rare collectible ones — are the theme in this particular incarnation of the old dark house movie. Whose old dark house properties are a good bit more understated than some other movies in this genre (sub-genre?). It takes a while for all parties concerned to even get to the old dark house and when they do things play out more like a fairly standard murder mystery. But its close enough for government work, as the saying goes.

The book that’s causing all of the fuss is a Gutenberg Bible, the first book ever to be printed on a printing press. Needless to say, it’s somewhat valuable and high on the want list of a certain book thief.

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New Treasures: These Vicious Masks by Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas

Tuesday, March 15, 2016 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Well here’s something interesting — a Victorian era superhero novel. Debut novelists Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas bring us the tale of Evelyn Wyndham and her sister Rose, a Victorian adventure featuring evening parties, abductions, a love triangle, witty dialog, mysterious and secret societies, fog-shrouded London, villains with phenomenal abilities, intrigue, mystery, and more. It’s being called Jane Austen meets X-Men, which isn’t a description I hear very often.

These Vicious Masks was published by Swoon Reads on February 9, 2016. It is 320 pages, priced at $9.99 for both the trade paperback and digital editions. The cover is by Rich Deas. Click on the back cover above to read the complete description. See the complete details, including a brief excerpt, at the Swoon Reads website.

See all of our coverage of the best in New Fantasy here.

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Q27 Now Available

Tuesday, March 15, 2016 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

In his January Short Story Roundup, Fletcher Vredenburgh reported on the latest issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly:

As usual, HFQ has got the goods, and both stories grabbed me and then left me hanging. The stunning cover painting, Forbidden Valley is by Brad Fraunfelter.

The first is “Crazy Snake and the Tribute for Pachacamac” by Eric Atkisson. It’s the third story about the Comanche warrior wandering south from the Comancheria (read the others here) into Central America… Fleeing Walker’s soldiers, he and his faithful horse, Aahtaqui, find themselves in the ocean, swimming toward a silver-mist-shrouded shore. Pretty much everything you could want in a S&S story shows up on shore: stone idols, an evil god served by evil priests, fighting, mad sorceries, and ancient curses…

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